iOS Concurrency with GCD & Operations

Sep 12 2023 · Swift 5.8, macOS 13, iOS 16, Xcode 14.3

Part 2: Concurrency Problems & Solutions

12. Explore Priority Inversion

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Notes: 12. Explore Priority Inversion

Prioritize Work with Quality of Service Classes

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In this exercise, you’ll use a semaphore and queues with different quality of service values to create a priority inversion: A low priority queue gets a lock on a resource, so a high priority queue has to wait until the resource is free. In the starter playground, create global queues with higher and lower qos values than the medium queue, and a semaphore with value 1:

let high = DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInteractive) 
let medium = DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated) // existing
let low = DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background)
let semaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 1)
high.async {
  semaphore.wait()
  defer { semaphore.signal() }
  print("High priority task is now running")
  sleep(1)
  PlaygroundPage.current.finishExecution()
}
low.async {
  semaphore.wait()
  defer { semaphore.signal() }
  print("Low priority task is now running")
}
high.async {
  sleep(2)
  print("High priority task is now waiting")
  semaphore.wait()  // existing
  defer { semaphore.signal() }  // existing
  
  print("High priority task is now running")  // existing
  PlaygroundPage.current.finishExecution()  // existing
}
low.async {
  semaphore.wait()  // existing
  defer { semaphore.signal() }  // existing
  
  print("Low priority task is now running")  // existing
  sleep(5)
}
for i in 1 ... 10 {
  medium.async {
    print("Running medium task \(i)")
    let waitTime = Double(Int.random(in: 0..<7))
    Thread.sleep(forTimeInterval: waitTime)
  }
}
Running medium task 2
Running medium task 1
Running medium task 3
Running medium task 4
Running medium task 5
Running medium task 6
Running medium task 7
Running medium task 9
Running medium task 8
Low priority task is now running
Running medium task 10
High priority task is now waiting
High priority task is now running